And alas! All happy dreams are short enough. Allan's was dissipated by a
sound of suppressed weeping. He looked cautiously around, and on the
clean, brown ground beneath the pines, a little in advance of him, he saw
a woman sitting. Her back was against the trunk of a large tree, her face
was turned quite away from him, but he knew it was Mary Campbell. And
softly and hurriedly he retraced his own steps for some distance, and then
he found the wall, and leaped into the highway, and walked home by it;
thoroughly awake and disenchanted.
He did not meet Mary until the dinner hour. She was then elegantly
dressed, her face clear and bright, her manner, as it always was, gentle
and yet cheerful.
"The sphinx," thought Allan, "is some inscrutable woman on our own
hearth-stone." He remembered the low sobbing he had heard in the wood, the
bowed head, the unmistakable attitude of grief, and then he looked at
Mary's face dimpling with smiles, and at her pretty figure, brave in
glistening silk and gold ornaments. And somehow, that night, she made him
feel that she was the head of the House of Campbell, and the heiress of
Drumloch.
The next day was the Sabbath. She was very particular about her religious
duties; she went to kirk twice, she had the servants in the evening for
catechism and parallel passages.
She gave Allan no opportunity of seeing her alone. On Monday morning,
although it rained, she insisted on going to Glasgow; and she stayed in
Glasgow until the following Wednesday evening. It was perhaps the first
sensation of "snub" that Allan had ever received; and it annoyed him very
much.
But on Wednesday night she seemed to relent, and she did all in her power
to make their last dinner together one pleasant to remember. When she left
her uncle and cousin to finish their wine, she left them well disposed to
kindly confidence. For since Allan's return from Fife he had not felt
confidence possible. His father had asked no questions, and shown no
disposition to discuss his plans. But at this hour he voluntarily renewed
the subject.
"You went to Fife, I suppose, Allan?"
"Yes, sir. I was there two days."
"And are you still in the same mind?"
"Nothing can change my mind on that subject, sir."
"Time has worked greater wonders, Allan. However, I will venture no
opinion for two years. When do you go Westward?"
"I shall leave for Liverpool by to-morrow night's train. I shall sail on
Saturday."